Tony Connelly at RTE is usually the most reliable source of information on the thinking inside the EU and quite often he's the quickest to release details. I assume he has good contacts in the Commission and with the Irish ambassador. Any way he tweeted yesterday and followed it up with an article which I think shows the EU are going to play hardball - or perhaps use the iron fist in the velvet glove. They are not going to collapse the talks under any circumstances and will give the UK government every chance to come to terms with their position.
Here's Connelly's tweet:
Here's my latest on the Brexit negotiations...There's a lot of talk about time pressure +who that benefits. The EU has more onerous ratification obligations than the UK, eg the European Parliament will have to ratify the week beginning Dec 14 (the UK gov has more discretion)— Tony Connelly (@tconnellyRTE) November 19, 2020
The UK government is trying to apply pressure to the EU by running down the clock themselves in the belief that the EU's approval and ratification process is much longer and more convoluted - which is true. Connelly says:
"However the EU is shifting strategy, going for "patience" and finding legal solutions to remove any time pressure caused by all the procedures. This couldd include Provisional Application of parts of a deal from Jan 1, but that's regarded as "messy" and would only gain a few weeks
"The bigger determination seems to be to let the UK be the ones to pull the plug. This would be on the basis that the EU is better placed to weather the storm of No Deal than the UK.
"Yes, parts of the EU would be badly hit - not least Ireland, but also Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, parts of France etc. The calculation is that these constituencies will be supported financially, and in the time the UK will have to come back to the table next year.
"One source says: “The timing on both sides is an issue but we are not going to be the ones to pull the plug + say we're not moving forward anymore. The pressure is more on the UK. At the end of the day we still have the single market, we still have the Withdrawal Agreement.”
His longer article is HERE.
This all sounds exactly the sort of thing David Frost would be proposing and it fits in with British exceptionalism and belief that it can bend 27 nations to its will. Plus Johnson as I mentioned yesterday is a gambler with a high risk threshold - mainly because he's always gotten away with things in the past.
I fear he will lose this one badly.
The EU will be less affected although individual nations with closer trading links will feel a no deal Brexit more - BUT, none as much as the UK. Plus the EU are larger, richer and have more flexibility in supply chains. And it is and always has been true that tails don't wag the dog.
As Thucydides said thousands of years ago, in a phrased used by Yanis Varoufakis for his book title about the EU, the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.
Later, at 9:13pm Adam Parsons, Sky News's Europe correspondent, tweeted:
NEW: Sources have confirmed that some EU leaders, inc @EmmanuelMacron, tonight called for no-deal preparations to be intensified.
— Adam Parsons (@adamparsons) November 19, 2020
So, it looks as if they will quietly step up preparations for leaving without a deal and dare the UK government to pull the plug - something they would (and perhaps should) have done back in June. Even mid October night have given them a few more weeks and many businesses might have been shocked into getting ready.
As it is we only get warning coming thicker and faster that industry is simply not ready and mainly because the government has been unwilling or unable to tell them in detail what is required. And, in truth even if they had provided the details, the time frame was so compressed it would have been a Herculean task to get everything ready.
One of the witnesses giving evidence to the Future Relationship Committee last week, the man representing the NI Retail Consortium, Aodhán Connolly, said the changes being imposed on businesses in the province would normally take 18-24 months to implement. They are being asked to do it in six weeks and without all the information. There is, for example, no Border Operating Model published yet! It is not going to happen is it?
Matters have not been helped by one of Barnier's team going down with coronavirus with the "suspending" of negotiations eating into what little time is left:
🇪🇺🇬🇧 update: one of the negotiators in my team has tested positive for COVID-19. With @DavidGHFrost we have decided to suspend the negotiations at our level for a short period. The teams will continue their work in full respect of guidelines.
— Michel Barnier (@MichelBarnier) November 19, 2020
I can see this going on for a few more days until the UK government concedes there is not enough time, ironic when you think they had the chance in the middle of a pandemic to ask for and get an extension. Johnson will find it difficult to cite lack of time or unforeseen circumstances for any delay.
The EU are upping the stakes and however much of gambler Johnson is he will find they are better poker players, with an unbeatable hand and far more money. It is only a matter of time.
